The words for the moon phase in the inscriptions on bronze wares in the Zhou dynasty are open to different interpretations, and the calculation of the moon phase dates clarifies the ambiguities of the bronze moon phase words. Calculation of the time interval between the calendar solunar dates in two bronze ware inscriptions can be made, because the calendar solunar dates (gan-zhi 干支) were in a constant cycle of 60 days. Calculation of the date interval between the two moon phases on the same two bronze ware inscriptions also can be made , because the moon phase is also in cycles. The narrative tradition in the inscriptions of the Shang and Zhou dynasties includes a date series: the day in the solunar cycle, the month and the year of a king’s reign, and the day in the moon phase cycle. By comparing whether the two intervals meet or not, one can verify whether the bronze moon-phase idioms are meaningful, and it can also be confirmed whether the chronology of the kings of Zhou compiled by the previous scholars is resonable and create a new chronology through iterative calculation. The time intervals calculated in this paper chronicle every imperial event from the Zhou dynasty to the Shang dynasty, which rebuild a new chronology for the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. All modern attempts are hindered by a basic assumption, that the bone calendar of the Shang Dynasty is the same as the bronze calendar of the Zhou Dynasty, but it is completely different from the bronze calendar of Zhou, when reading the Bronze Annals (this paper) alongside the Bone Annals (last paper) and as seen in Table 24. In addition, although the inscriptions related to the lunar phases are extremely difficult to understand, through computation, the records of three lunar eclipses on bronze vessels in the Zhou and Shang dynasties are newly recognized, which helps to reconstruct a new chronological list of the kings of Zhou.

This paper probes the elements of theoretical necessity, starting with the word ruo (若) in Duan Yucai’s Shuo Wen Jie Zi Zhu (段玉裁《說文解字註》). From the prospective of theoretical methods of “Ruo (若) ,” the theoretical necessity of “Ruo (若) ,” the exegesis functions of “Ruo (若) ” and different intonations with different modal particles, the author conducted multi-level and multi-dimensional analysis on “Ruo (若) ” in Duan Yucai’s Shuo Wen Jie Zi Zhu (段玉裁《說文解 字註》) so as to explore the concepts of theoretical necessity from Duan Yucai.